Kenneth Pugh

357^th Antiaircraft Artillery

Searchlight Battalion

Interviewed April 26, 2006

Jefferson, Wisconsin

Kenneth L. Pugh was born in Ixonia, Wisconsin, on July 17, 1924.  His father died when he was only two years old, so his grandparents raised him.  Ken attended a parochial school with forty-two other students and one teacher.  Lutheran church services and confirmation classes were held in German.  His grandparents were born in the United States and they could speak English, but they spoke German in their home, as did many others in the rural Farmington, Wisconsin area.  Ken grew up knowing how to speak German but he never learned how to read the language.

In 1942, it was announced that there was to be a 19-year-old draft across the country.  Several of Ken’s friends were to be in this draft and he wanted to go along with them but he was only eighteen years old.  He was able to volunteer for the draft.  This meant he was in the military for the duration (of the war) plus six months.

In January of 1943, he was sent to Camp Shelby, an induction center.  Then he was transferred to the swampy Camp Stewart, Georgia, for basic training.  Ken said, “Even though it was February, it was still hot."

At Camp Stewart, he became part of the newly formed 357th Antiaircraft Artillery Searchlight Battalion.  Radar had been around for a while but it had been stationery.  This was new because it was mobile and could travel on a truck.  The radar was as large as a classroom and looked like a giant bed spring atop eight big wheels.  Three operators sat on specially mounted seats, each with a viewing screen.  The operators would observe the bleeps pips on the screen.  One screen measured distance, the second elevation and the third horizontal asmath.  A radar signal could be picked up five to six miles away.

When all three lines met it was time to fire.  Once a target was within range, the searchlights, six feet in diameter with large magnifying mirrors, would light up the enemy plane and the battalion's  90 mm antiaircraft guns would begin firing.  The light would be so intense that a pilot could read a newspaper.    

To practice in Georgia, they would have a Piper Cub tow plane pulling an aluminum foil target on a really long cable.  The magnetic target would act as a dummy plane for target practice.  The tow plane had a mechanism that showed if it were friend or foe.  The antiaircraft units would fire at the target.  Sometimes the tow planes were accidentally shot down.  During actual combat, bombers would drop aluminum confetti to confuse the enemy's radar.

Nearly nine hundred men made up the 357th Antiaircraft Artillery (AAA) Searchlight Battalion.  The patch they used on their uniform included a searchlight.  The entire battalion had twenty-seven searchlights and each searchlight had a generator.  The battalion was made up of three batteries and a small Headquarters company.  Each battery had several platoons that were further broken down into sections.  Twenty-six men made up a section, including a cook, KPs, radar crew, and a searchlight crew.  The sections could be spread out over a large area.  One section could be set up in one town, another in a town ten miles away and a third ten miles in another direction.

Ken in front of searchlight and power plant (bought at army surplus and used for grand openings of shopping centers, automobile dealerships, etc.)

Kenneth Pugh in Georgia surrounded by two unknown buddies

What was unusual about the 357th was how many of this unit came from Wisconsin, especially the Jefferson county area:  Darvin Brown, Gerald Zebell, Irvan Clark, Don Johnson and Harold Steinel of Fort Atkinson; Joe Burnett, James Endl, Gilbert Miller, Ken Pugh, Melvin Streich, Dennis Buchach and John Rue of Jefferson; Tom Gillis, Lloyd Lenz, Marynk Mann, Austin Fromader, Carlton Holzheiter, Robert Marshal, Robert Wendt, Frederick Harder, Gerhard Zimdars and Melvin Grunewald of Watertown; Eugene Dorn of Lake Mills; Russel Edwards of Waterloo; Ken Kutz of Sullivan; Robert Strohbush of Cambridge; and Leroy Straus of Concord.  They also stayed together in Europe for the remaining three years of the war.  “We were a bunch of wet behind the ears 18 and 19-year-olds,” said Ken.

When he went into the army, a MOS had to be selected.  Many times the army would look at the background of the soldier and select accordingly.  Ken said, “If you were a soda jerk in civilian life, you would become a cook in the army.  If you pumped gas on the outside, inside the military you’d become a mechanic.  I did not want any KP duty so I became part of the motor pool, driving truck.  We drove heavy trucks, big enough to retrieve tanks.  My job was moving the power plant generator.”

The Normandy Invasion (D-Day) happened three months prior to the 357th arriving in Plymouth, England in 1944.  The British harbors were in bad shape because of the continued bombardment from Germany.  Ken commented, “I had to admire the British.  At night, they slept in the bomb shelters and the subways.  During the day they had as normal of a life as they could.”  The 357th moved their equipment and unit further inland to Blackshore Moor.

Thanksgiving dinner menu at Camp Davis, North Carolina